


Hand Fishin'

by SonjaJade



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Brotp, Gen, R&R, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8292704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: Ed is ordered to go on mandatory R&R, and to make sure he R&R’s, Havoc goes with him





	

It all began back in Central.  Colonel Bastard was complaining that I looked like a dried up turd and that I needed to take some time to relax.  I told him hell no, he told me hell yes and pushed me into the hallway and ordered Havoc to come with me.  And Al?  Well, since he doesn’t need to sleep or eat or pee or just take a moment to crack his back, he was excused from the mandatory R&R.  I’ll admit, I was more than a little pissed when I punched that hole in the wall, and even more pissed when Lt. Hawkeye made me fix it before I left… without alchemy… _at gunpoint._   But once Havoc and I started riding out of the city and began seeing more green spaces than buildings, I realized I needed this.  
   
Of course I’m not telling Mustang that.  
   
“So, boss,” Havoc says to me just as we’re passing over Central City Limits.  “You’re from Resembool, right?”  
   
I told him I was and that it really wasn’t much to write home about.  Sheep.  Apple Festival in the fall.  That was about it.  
   
“I grew up about 60 miles northwest of there, in Greer.  It’s about as exciting as Resembool it sounds like, ‘cept in Greer we raised swine.  And instead of an Apple Festival we had a corn maze in the summer that was three acres big.  Had watchtowers in a couple of different spots to help people if they got lost.”  
   
I knew Havoc was a country boy like me, but I didn’t know how much like me he really was.  I asked him if he went to a one room school like me and Al and Winry did, and if he had a swing in the tree in the yard, a ‘swimmin’ hole’, how long it took him to start adding the ‘g’ to words like swimmin’, when he first started saying ‘isn’t’ instead of ‘ain’t’…  We had a nice conversation as we drove to wherever the hell we were going.  Finally I asked him if we even had a destination.  
   
“Oh yeah!  It’s a place that me and the guys like to come to when the weather’s nice.”  
   
I asked him if he was gonna give me any more details than that, and he laughed as he kept sucking on that cigarette.  “You gotta learn to be patient, boss.  My momma used to say that patience wasn’t just a virtue, it was a skill that should be honed and practiced everyday.”  
   
He pulled off the road in a town I’d never been to before, Rejo, and then wound down a gravel road into the _real_ countryside.  Eventually we turned onto a dirt road, and not long after that we pulled off into the grass and got out.  I asked him where the hell we were and he stripped off down to his boxers.  “We’re gonna go fishin’.  Come on, boss!  Shed them clothes and let’s get to it!”  
   
I laughed through my nose and started jerking my boots off.  He walked up to the river bank and surveyed the water, and when I joined him we walked right out into the gentle current up to our thighs.  We stood stock still and felt it: the familiar nibble of fish lips biting at the bubbles at the ends of our leg hairs and the silky caress of a fin as one of them swam by.  
   
“I ain’t done this in years,” Havoc chuckled as we just stood there in the muddy water, grinning like a dumbass.  
   
I couldn’t blame him, though.  I hadn’t done it with the automail limbs, and I knew I was going to have to be damn sure to clean the joints out and oil it real good when we got back to Central.  I asked him if we were gonna fish or just stand here in the fish shit, and he smirked as he smacked his hand down into the water and splashed me.  We ended up scaring the fish away in our little water fight, but eventually they came back.  It was about an hour later when we finally caught one.  Havoc got a real nice sized sunfish and tossed it up on the bank, and then I grabbed a turtle (completely by accident, it had chomped down on one of my metal fingers).  Once Havoc wrangled in a small bass, we took our catch and began to cook it up for dinner.   
   
“It sucks that you can’t feel the fish with your automail hand,” the Lieutenant commented around a mouth full of half charred turtle meat.  “Just like Al carries a list of things he can’t wait to eat when he gets his body back, I bet you have a list of things you can’t wait to feel again.”  
   
I hadn’t thought about that before, but Havoc was right.  I couldn’t wait to go swimming again and feel the weightless touch of the water licking _both_ my legs, couldn’t wait to feel the softness of clean sheets and something as simple as a sock against my left foot…  I wanted to touch Winry’s hair with the fingers of my right hand, but I was taking that secret to the grave with me.  I told him I wasn’t so concerned with my own wants, that I was more worried about getting Al restored.  Even with the things I was missing, I still could feel hot and cold, hungry and sleepy and everything else that goes with the human experience.  
                                                                                      
“Well, I’m sure you’ll find a way to restore both your bodies.  You both got that country-boy gumption in ya, and I see great things in the future for you Elrics.”  He gave me a sunburned grin and kept eating, both of us sipping at cans of beer Havoc had cooled in the river.  
   
Just after sunset (but before the dark had a chance to fully envelop us), we climbed back in the car and headed back to town.  I told Havoc I thought we were gonna be camping out, but he seemed to balk at the idea.  
   
“Hell no!” he said as he lit a cigarette and offered me one.  I declined.  “We’re gonna go cow tippin’!”  
   
I shook my head as laughter bubbled up from my belly.  Rest?  Relaxation?  Not in the traditional sense anyway.  Dusk settled in as Havoc steered our ride toward a dairy farm he’d seen out here once before and I found myself thinking about Resembool…  I grinned and stuck my hand out the window and experimented with its aerodynamics as we rode through the dark.  This was gonna be the best break I’d ever taken.


End file.
